A Study On Their Eyes Were Watching God From The Perspective Of Spatial Criticism

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) is one of the most outstanding African American writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Meanwhile, as the mother of African American feminism literature, she is also considered as an influential folklorist and great anthropologist. Her representative work Their Eyes Were Watching God is very classical in African American literature history. Employing numerous black folk culture and humorous language, it vividly pictures the pursuit of identity of a black woman called Janie who revolts racial oppression and gender discrimination, pursuing independence and freedom.The representative writer of spatial criticism Henri Lefebvre proposes a tripartite pattern of space-spatial practice, representations of space, and representational space. In the interpretation of literary works, the three spaces are usually interpreted as physical space, psychological space and social space respectively. The heterotopia, as a kind of representational space, is a special perspective to reveal the conflicts between the rebellious and the mainstream order. This paper will analyze Their Eyes Were Watching God from the perspective of spatial criticism to reveal the implied spatial message and how the protagonist Janie enters the heterotopic space for her self-realization.At first, the thesis discusses the changes of Janie's growth in confined physical spaces, from childhood in the white'backyard, adolescence in Logan's big house to adulthood in Eatonville's home. Janie lives in confined and restricted spaces for a long time. Then, it analyzes the shifts of Janie's complex psychological spaces in her living confined physical spaces, from the emergence of self-consciousness to the maturity of spiritual spaces. The expansion in her inner space prompts her growth of racial discourse and gender consciousness. At last, the paper focuses on how Janie in subordinate spaces achieves her self-fulfillment, enters heterotopic spaces and acquires love and freedom in racial and gendered social spaces.During the process of Janie's self-realization, her every growth is accompanied by the shifts of physical space, psychological space and social space. From the initial narrow space to the eventual vast space, she enters the heterotopia, which implies that African American women participate in spatial politics, challenge the white hegemony, abandon the constraint of patriarchy and realize the double liberation of physical bodies and mental mindsets.